The Dealer
by Lady Fellshot
Summary: A one shot. Jarlaxle cleans out the portable hole that lives in his hatband.


Disclaimer: Fie on WotC! Their Realms are dead! LONG LIVE MINE!

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Jarlaxle considered his open portable hole on the bed and sighed in resignation. _I really do need to go through it. Need to make sure that Kimmuriel didn't slip anything "helpful" in it._

He began by slipping on a monocle that would allow him to see magical auras. The drow fully realized that his psionic lieutenant might opt for something unrelated to the Weave to track him, but he could at least eliminate some of his belongings from the list of possible suspects.

An hour later, a neat arrangement of tools, devices, potions, elixirs and wands sat across from a large disarray of clothes in various bright jewel hued fabrics and leathers. Separated from those were various innocuous items ranging from cotton rope to a large woman's bustier. Jarlaxle picked up a small, plain grey zurhkwood box. _Well, this doesn't look suspicious at all..._ he thought sardonically as he opened the simple latch.

A worn deck of playing cards greeted his suspicions. Aside from an enchantment to keep them whole against the ravages of time, the cards emanated nothing overtly threatening to Jarlaxle's monocled eye. _I thought I had gotten rid of those centuries ago..._

He pulled the deck from the box and flipped through them quickly, wary that something might have been slipped among them. Failing to see anything untoward, the drow shuffled the worn cards to see if the preservation spell on them had deteriorated.

After a few slips, Jarlaxle's long nimble fingers remembered the skills that had once kept him fed, clothed and in the good graces of the first person he had called his partner. The mercenary flipped cards up and caught them, cut the deck in the air and spread the deck in a neat arc on the smooth floor before gathering them up to reshuffle them again with more flourishes.

A grin started to sneak out over the mercenary's face and a curious feeling of lightness stole its way into his mind, pushing Jarlaxle's current set of worries aside. He continued shuffling and reshuffling, airing the musty smell out of the stack of thick papers and relishing the even percussive rolling sound of the cards slapping against each other. _I don't care if this is a trap courtesy of Kimmuriel. It's been far too long since I last did this_. _I've forgotten what fun it is!_

Jarlaxle laughed softly as he sat cross legged on the cool floor and began to deal the cards out. _A hand of solitaire, perhaps and then putting all my things away... _A moment later his breath caught and his delight evaporated like liquor in the midday desert sun as he stared at the old cards before him.

Instead of a hand for one, a game for two lay before the mercenary.

He suddenly remembered the last time this deck of cards had been used. He remembered the person, his partner, sitting across from Jarlaxle with scuffed boots propped up on their salvaged table, next to his weapons belt. He remembered the way his partner idly flipped a throwing dagger in his hand, the way the blade glimmered between his fingers before he settled down to play a hand.

Jarlaxle remembered the last time his best friend in all of Faerûn laughed in unrestrained delight, the harsh baritone smoothed out by shared levity. _Before I sent him on the mission that doomed him._

Jarlaxle looked morosely at the cards he had dealt for himself. _A matron, a mage, a weaponsmaster, and a high priestess, all in the suit of webs. Full house. Seems like I always ended up with the upper hand. I wonder what he would have had..._

The mercenary flipped over the second hand one by one. With each card he turned over, he felt his melancholy lift a little. By the time he saw the last one, Jarlaxle smiled with a lingering twinge of sadness. A set of four aces lay on the floor opposite him. _You won, you crazy, sneaky, irreverent bastard. You really won._

He carefully gathered up the cards and put them back in their plain grey box, shaking his head at his memories. The drow started shoving his belongings back into the gaping hole, saving the card box for last. He debated putting the small wooden item back amongst his other equipment or leaving it under a pillow for the chambermaids to discover after he left.

_I have to remember_, Jarlaxle decided as he dropped the box into his portable hole. _I need to remember how dire the stakes are._

He folded the hole up neatly and tucked it into a vest pocket, over his heart. _And to realize that sometimes they're just too damned high to bear._

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Author's note: I'm not entirely sure where in the time-line this fits, but I don't think it really matters to this sort of ficlet.

Anyway, I was thinking about writing a companion piece to Knife Work, and then this popped into my head while listening to Susanne Vega's "No Cheap Thrill," watching the movie _Maverick_ and reading Servant of the Shard.

I hope you liked it, gentle reader.


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